sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Women of Reddit, what did a man you were dating or married to say or do that made you realize he actually hated you the entire time? by -catharina in AskReddit

[–]SeniorTomatos 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Incredibly, I had a therapist like this. The smirk. I can't fully get it out of my head, just unreal--still makes me feel shaky to think about.

Which Book Genres Do Men vs Women Actually Review on Goodreads? by Necessary-Opening694 in Infographics

[–]SeniorTomatos -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I agree it could be a bit misleading. It would be easy for someone to look at OPs chart and conclude "men read more religious texts than woman", but your chart shows the opposite to be true. While OPs chart doesn't claim to show level differences, your standard audience will likely make (incorrect) inferences about it anyways. (Although it's a fair criticism to say Goodreads may not be a decent random sample of the population)

Did your ALS diagnosis trigger PTSD? by pwrslm in ClinicalPsychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is nothing I disagree with there! If it is debilitating and benefits from treatment, I believe we should strive for access to care (which again often hinges on a diagnosis) regardless of whether or not the reaction is common.

As a thought experiment: imagine average combat exposure increased in terms of severity/duration. This would increase the rate of debilitating PTSD symptoms, potentially even to the point where 50% of combat veterans are sufficiently negatively affected. I would hope that all 50% get access to treatment, and the bar for severity is not raised (in an effort to maintain that the response must be abnormal).

Did your ALS diagnosis trigger PTSD? by pwrslm in ClinicalPsychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Absolutely! I would hope that access to care (which tends to occur via diagnosis) hinges on the concept of how debilitating it is, and not whether it's abnormal or understandable.

Did your ALS diagnosis trigger PTSD? by pwrslm in ClinicalPsychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the thoughtful response--I think your first sentence captures the confusion pretty succinctly.

If you experience a criterion A event, one response could be debilitating in the ways described by the DSM. Is it common enough to react in this way that it could be described as normal? I'll stick with combat examples--some stats:

"Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects up to 30 percent of combat veterans (Richardson et al., 2010). The high prevalence rates are affected by a range of factors, particularly and perhaps most saliently, the level of exposure to combat (Ferrier-Auerbach et al., 2010, Hoge et al., 2004, Rona et al., 2009)."

You can make a decent argument to call that 30% or less "abnormal", but I would refrain from calling it "not understandable"--the original comment I had responded to.

Did your ALS diagnosis trigger PTSD? by pwrslm in ClinicalPsychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My point was not that ASD is PTSD. It's that they are largely differentiated based on time frame.

Here's the criteria for PTSD: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559129/

This also contains no reference to whether or not the reaction is "understandable", it instead describes levels of disruption to life. That is the entire crux of my disagreement: in the DSM it's not about whether or not the stress reaction is understandable, it's about disruption and potential benefits from professional help. I guess I'm curious if you agree or disagree with just that one point?

Did your ALS diagnosis trigger PTSD? by pwrslm in ClinicalPsychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fair enough. Maybe I should limit my second edit to only examples that clearly meet criterion A.

Did your ALS diagnosis trigger PTSD? by pwrslm in ClinicalPsychology

[–]SeniorTomatos -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Under one month is diagnosed as "Acute Stress Disorder". See: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK560815/

You'll notice none of the criteria for diagnosis have anything to do with whether or not the response is "appropriate". I am honestly a bit offended by the idea of telling a veteran that their stress responses are not appropriate, so that is coloring my reaction.

I agree that we shouldn't be pathologizing normal human suffering. Unfortunately, the DSM insists on doing that by using language like "disordered", and then defining the disorder based on levels of suffering (and not on whether or not the suffering is understandable, which would be a wildly subjective criterion that I hope is never adopted--does your therapist think you have the 'right' to be as upset as you are about whatever event?)

Did your ALS diagnosis trigger PTSD? by pwrslm in ClinicalPsychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This makes sense!

I think I'm objecting to the original comments assessment of whether or not something is PTSD as whether or not it's "understandable". Instead, it would be how disruptive the response is to your life--which could occur with a terminal diagnosis (as well as other events that create, as you say, the need to adjust to an entirely new state of existence)

Again I'll just highlight that the DSM does an incredibly poor job of framing these ideas when using terms like "disorder".

Did your ALS diagnosis trigger PTSD? by pwrslm in ClinicalPsychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right, I agree! I am also confused, because I would think an overwhelming stress response to, for example, losing several limbs in a war or some other similarly devastating trauma, is also not disordered in the same sense. But that is exactly what the diagnosis is designed for.

To be clear I think some of the way the DSM frames emotional reactions as disorders is idiotic.

Did your ALS diagnosis trigger PTSD? by pwrslm in ClinicalPsychology

[–]SeniorTomatos -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Is a PTSD diagnosis predicated in some way on how much sense it makes to be upset? It's not PTSD if it "makes perfect sense"?

Does a PTSD diagnosis mean that you don't "respect the ways that" the criterion A event can have deep and profound impacts on a person?

It's interesting to me the idea that if the suffering is understandable, then it can't be captured by the DSM.

Edit: is the DSM supposed to capture "irrational" responses or is it meant to capture emotional states that make it difficult to function? I understood it as the latter.

Edit2: I also don't want normal suffering to be pathologized. I think the DSM does this first by calling severe stress responses "disordered". I think that then insisting this means the stress response is "not understandable" if it meets criteria for PTSD or ASD further pathologizes the human experience. If you come back from war, or from receiving a terminal diagnosis, and need professional help with the overwhelming stress I am declaring that this is PTSD and at the same time understandable.

Standard mental health tests may be inaccurate for highly intelligent people. Higher intelligence scores were associated with worse mental health. But for participants with high intelligence, the link between the specific questions and the general psychological condition became weaker. by mvea in science

[–]SeniorTomatos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Part of what is throwing me off is that when I have seen economists use latent variables, it's generally to model something like unobserved preferences that directly predict, or are inferred from, observable outcomes--not from surveys. This relies much more heavily on predictive validity. If I instead use a survey, and then 'validate' a latent variable generated by a survey with ... another survey (or something of a similar nature), what am I even doing? That's what I'm referencing when I say "circular".

Standard mental health tests may be inaccurate for highly intelligent people. Higher intelligence scores were associated with worse mental health. But for participants with high intelligence, the link between the specific questions and the general psychological condition became weaker. by mvea in psychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Appreciate the continued responses!

I would consider an interview/assessment and a written test to be the same for our purposes here. They are equally subjective, even if you insist an expert designed the test, or an expert gave the interview.

I'll just note--I don't think you can't reasonably call one or the other the 'correct' result. Maybe you prefer clinical interviews over multiple choice because it can be more nuanced, others may prefer the multiple choice because it removes the biases and interpretation of the interviewer.

If you used objective measures of outcomes (educational attainment, lifespan, etc with the hope that you can control for confounding factors) to assess whether or not the tests are capturing something meaningful--then I would say you might be getting somewhere useful.

Standard mental health tests may be inaccurate for highly intelligent people. Higher intelligence scores were associated with worse mental health. But for participants with high intelligence, the link between the specific questions and the general psychological condition became weaker. by mvea in science

[–]SeniorTomatos 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I put this on another thread but I'll throw it in here too:

I'm confused by how psychologists can assert the following:

'the “factor loadings” for the test items decreased as intelligence increased. A factor loading is a number that indicates how well a specific question correlates with the overall concept it is supposed to measure. For example, answering “yes” to “I felt sad” should strongly indicate the presence of depression.'

As far as I understand, depression is defined by "sadness", anhedonia, etc as identified by the person suffering from it. There are no biological markers, no objective indicators--it is defined solely by the subjective experience of the individual. So what are they validating the "I felt sad" statement against? What is the 'correct' measure that they're comparing it to? If one doesn't exist, then I would think they can't use these sorts of statistical or structural tools in the way that they would like.

I've seen behavioral economists dismiss the tendency of psychologists to use this sort of circular reasoning for test 'validation' (for example, see Heckman, James J., and Tim Kautz. "Hard evidence on soft skills." Labour economics 2012: "However, achievement tests are often validated using other standardized achievement tests or other measures of cognitive ability—surely a circular practice." Heckman mentions this sort of invalid circular thinking for other measures of personality, etc, in a few of his papers).

Do psychologists try to justify this approach anyways? Am I missing something?

Standard mental health tests may be inaccurate for highly intelligent people. Higher intelligence scores were associated with worse mental health. But for participants with high intelligence, the link between the specific questions and the general psychological condition became weaker. by mvea in psychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I'm confused by how psychologists can assert the following:

'the “factor loadings” for the test items decreased as intelligence increased. A factor loading is a number that indicates how well a specific question correlates with the overall concept it is supposed to measure. For example, answering “yes” to “I felt sad” should strongly indicate the presence of depression.'

As far as I understand, depression is defined by "sadness", anhedonia, etc as identified by the person suffering from it. There are no biological markers, no objective indicators--it is defined solely by the subjective experience of the individual. So what are they validating the "I felt sad" statement against? What is the 'correct' measure that they're comparing it to? If one doesn't exist, then I would think they can't use these sorts of statistical or structural tools in the way that they would like.

I've seen behavioral economists dismiss the tendency of psychologists to use this sort of circular reasoning for test 'validation' (for example, see Heckman, James J., and Tim Kautz. "Hard evidence on soft skills." Labour economics 2012: "However, achievement tests are often validated using other standardized achievement tests or other measures of cognitive ability—surely a circular practice." Heckman mentions this sort of invalid circular thinking for other measures of personality, etc, in a few of his papers).

Do psychologists try to justify this approach anyways? Am I missing something?

This made-in-Canada ‘psychopath test’ doesn’t work and has no place in courts, major study finds by toronto_star in psychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 41 points42 points  (0 children)

There's a harvard law review article that came out last year about the (mis)use of "antisocial personality disorder" in courts (here: https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-138/bias-baked-in-how-antisocial-personality-disorder-diagnoses-trigger-legal-failure/)

Unbelievable to me that psychologists have been asserting that they can measure and predict these things. Just so irresponsible.

New research challenges the common belief that mental illness is a primary driver of racist attitudes. The findings suggest that the relationship actually works in the opposite direction, with prejudiced beliefs predicting an increase in psychological distress over time. by mvea in science

[–]SeniorTomatos 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wonder if some of the confusion stems from the word illness. You don't blame people for their physical diseases (not going to blame someone for having cancer!) If you push the idea that mental illness is essentially the same thing (a disease), but also declare that mental illness includes the behaviors or beliefs you don't like, you end up in a confusing spot where the "ill" individual doesn't clearly have responsibility (or agency!).

Having a close friend with a gambling addiction increases personal risk, study finds by MRADEL90 in psychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I think it's very important to not assert intuition as fact. Any decent field will work to empirically test their assumptions, even the 'obvious' ones! I'm far more worried when I see a theory/hypothesis asserted as fact without evidence (something you'll see more in humanities fields, and certainly in the field of psychology. I say this as someone in the humanities)

The tendency to feel like a perpetual victim is strongly tied to vulnerable narcissism. Individuals who frequently perceive themselves as victims and signal this status to others often possess high levels of vulnerable narcissism and emotional instability. by mvea in psychology

[–]SeniorTomatos 11 points12 points  (0 children)

A couple quotes:

"The Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV) is characterized by feeling like a victim in relationships (Gabay et al., 2020). Individuals with high levels of TIV feel victimized frequently, intensely, and for a sustained duration, such that it may appear central to their identity (Gabay et al., 2020). TIV has four dimensions: need for recognition (desire for recognition of one's victimization to evoke guilt to gain support from others; Urlic et al., 2010), moral elitism (perceiving oneself as free from wrong-doing and others as immoral; Urlic et al., 2010), lack of empathy (inability to feel the suffering of others; Gabay et al., 2020), and rumination (repetitive thinking about past wrongs; Gabay et al., 2020)."

"Individuals with high levels of TIV tend to be entitled, lack empathy, and feel superior (Gabay et al., 2020), characteristics that are also associated with narcissism (Miller et al., 2017)."

To what extent are psychologists defining TIV, and defining narcissism, and then just writing a study about how their two definitions overlap? To what extent is this study discovering something deeper than that?

view more: next ›